Variables

How would I assign the output of a query into variables? I have the following code: $sql = "SELECT caa44340041, caa442400042 FROM caa44340, caa44240 WHERE caa443400018 = caa442400018; // THE QUERY ITSELF TO SELECT THE DATA $result = ifx_query($sql, $connect_id) or die ("couldn't execute the query"); // ASSIGNS THE RESULTS OF THE QUERY TO THE VARIABLE $RESULT What I want to do is take the result, which would be a single record containing caa44340041 and caa442400042 and put these vaules into the variable $first_name (caa44340041) and $last_name (caa442400042) so I can use them later on to populate multiple field entries in a form. Would I do something like this? $sql = "SELECT caa44340041, caa442400042 FROM caa44340, caa44240 WHERE caa443400018 = caa442400018; // THE QUERY ITSELF TO SELECT THE DATA $result = ifx_query($sql, $connect_id) or die ("couldn't execute the query"); // ASSIGNS THE RESULTS OF THE QUERY TO THE VARIABLE $RESULT $first_name = ($result, caa44340041); ??? any help is appreciated.